News reports indicate that hundreds of millions of genetically engineered mosquitoes will soon be released into chains on the Florida Keys Island to wipe out the disease-bearing mosquito population.
The big question is whether it works and has an unintended effect on the environment.
Florida Keys Mosquito Control District is currently budgeting about $1 million annually to combat invasive weapons Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes that can carry diseases like Zika virus Tell people about dengue According to Gizmodo.. Plans to release 750 million compared to expensive mosquito control tactics such as aerial spraying of pesticides Genetic recombination Mosquito mating with a local A. aegypti It may be cheaper and more effective, according to the board.
“Science is there. This is what Monroe County needs,” said Jill Clarney Gauge, a member of the Mosquito Commission. AP communication.. “We are trying everything, but we are lacking in choices,” he said. The board will vote 4-1 for this plan and start releasing mosquitoes sometime next year.
But not everyone agrees that science is uncontrollable.
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Biotech company Oxitec, who designed the modified pests, said gene“To men A. aegypti mosquito, Previously reported live sciences.. Theoretically, the modified male must mate with a female mosquito and pass on the lethal gene to the female progeny, failing to properly build essential proteins, and therefore needing to die before the progeny mature. This same genetic change does not affect male survival, so Oxitec mosquitoes survive until they mate with females, According to Science Magazine..
women only mosquito Gizmod bites humans because male mosquitoes simply drink nectar and are not infected with a deadly disease, while blood is needed to produce and mature eggs. In a laboratory study, Oxytech found that about 3% of female offspring with a lethal gene survive to adulthood, but these survivors are too weak to produce offspring, Live Science said earlier. Reported to.
However, that trend may not really be the case.
According to a study published in 2013, when Oxitec released millions of mosquitoes in Jacobina, Brazil between 2013 and 2015, a modified pest gene emerged in the local mosquito population. , Show that female offspring survived long enough to mate and pass the gene in the journal Science report.. These resulting hybrid mosquitoes did not carry the lethal gene introduced by Oxitec, but instead, the original Cuban and Mexican mosquito population originally used to create transgenic mosquitoes. Carried the gene from.
The authors of the study speculated that the increased genetic variation could make this hybrid mosquito “more robust”. This means that bugs may be more resistant to insecticides compared to native species. At that time, Oxitec was asking the authors to review the journal’s “misleading speculative remarks,” according to a science magazine report.
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At this point, scientists do not know how the influx of hybrid mosquitoes affects humans and animals that share the environment with pests. Oxitech mosquitoes themselves claim that they can harm local wildlife in unintended ways. “The ecosystem is so complex that so many species are involved that it’s almost impossible to pretest them all in the lab,” said Indiana University, who was not involved with Oxitec or pilots. The mosquito-borne disease expert Max Moreno project told AP.
Oxitec has already released these genetically modified mosquitoes in Brazil as well as in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Malaysia, A. aegypti Since its introduction, the population at each location has fallen by at least 90%. Gizmodo reported in 2016.. The company also plans to release mosquitoes in 2021 in Harris County, Texas, where Houston is located. According to the statement..
While plans to release mosquitoes to the Florida Keys are currently approved by the state and environmental protection agencies, among other groups, the Food Safety Center and the Florida Keys Environmental Alliance continue to oppose the decision, Gizmodo said. I reported. Earlier plans to release Oxitec mosquitoes at the key were overturned in 2018 when locals enthusiastically opposed the idea. WLRN reported..
Originally published in Live Science.
